I do have to say that the good thing about switching to a CEO like John Thain is that he wasnt afraid to get all the dirt out right off the bad.

Also he’s a CEO, what was he supposed to say?

“I going to f*cking tell you something, this sh*t is bull sh*t. I mean WTF, who the hell thought it was a good idea to bet heavily that people who dont pay their bills would pay their bills? I’ll tell you one thing, f*ck bonuses, f*ck reviews, we’re going to go to a more in your face approach, corperal punishment for under achiving employees and that goes from the mail boys right upto and including my secretary (winks at secretary)…”

On second thought, that wouldnt have been a bad statment. But I’ve got issues.

@clevershark: 9.7 was for the fourth quarter, 7.78 for the entire year — the entire year includes the fourth quarter. In other words, they made a 1.92 m profit in the first 3 quarters, and a loss of 9.7 in the last quarter, making the annual loss 7.78.

Amazing, companies lose millions or billions and the CEO leaves with millions. How is that right. Shouldn’t CEOs be paid based on how the well the company does? How can a company lose millions, yet still pay out bonuses worth millions?

the company wrote off 16.7 Billion. Subtracted against fourth quarter profits of 6.9 Billion, they ended up losing 9.7 Billion for the quarter. Further subracting against profits for the year, the company lost 7.78 Billion for the year.

@zibby: Yeah. He’s the one at fault, not the poor schmuck who just now walked in on this mess.

I feel really sorry for him, and not because he’s kind of asymmetrical in the face. He’s been brought into a situation so wrecked that avoiding bankruptcy counts as an achievement. What a thankless job.

Don’t feel sorry for them. They fucking made 5 billion in 2006. And who knows how much in the years prior. But that seems to get lost in the story. These fuckers aren’t hurting, they’re just setting it up to look bad so the government (you and me) will bail them out. Don’t fall for this bullshit.

@edebaby:
Actually, the government has been fairly clear that they have no intention of bailing out companies who made these subprime loans.

Who we will be bailing out are the homeowners who took the loans.

There is not a lot of deception going on here, there is bad news, and most of these firms are (ever so slowly) getting it off the books. In case you aren’t aware, the markets have pretty much been in the toilet since these write-downs began, and while some of it is over-selling, there is genuine bad news that is causing the markets to decline.

This is an issue because it affects normal people who are foreclosing and/or losing their nesteggs that were invested in SIVs.

You can’t just say “they made 5 billion” and assume that holds up as an argument as to why they are lying, its a lot of money, but its also a large company. What Thane is doing is a GOOD THING. He is being honest and doing what is best for investors and non-investors alike.

In the future, please remember that some of us are professionals in the industries that are reported on and that if you act like you know what you are talking about, someone will likely call your bluff.

Let’s remember too that some (all?) of these losses are paper losses. Huge generalization: If I pay $100 for something and it doubles to $200, I put in my books that I’m worth $200. Now it drops back to $100. I just lost half my shit! AArgh! Except I still have my $100.

Let’s also remember that this is just the housing price bubble popping that we’ve all been predicting, manifesting in an unexpected way.

I actually had stock in ML (only about 50 shares) but they were worth $10,000 and now are down to about $3,000. The problem was that ML wandered away from their standard operating procedure of creating financial products and charging a fee for that service to actually investing and keeping these CDO’s they created. What will save them is large amounts of foreign investment. Face it, by 2010 there won’t be anything owned by a US entity, it will be Chinese, Indian, Saudi, etc. I wonder how much of this has been planned by the Fed. Nevertheless, the immeasureable harm done by deregulation to Americans is coupled only by the unreasonable compensation executives receive. The CEO should have been fired and disgraced.